One of my great discoveries during 2012 was the wealth of insight I stumble across each week — from the fabulous writers, editors, agents, journalists and more that I follow on Twitter, to some of the professional groups I participate in, to resources I come across in my work.

Fitting for the first Friday of the new year, I’m kicking off this new column — Friday Links — to share the best reading I’ve found each week, just in time for your weekend reading. I anticipate featuring anything from interviews with writers, advice on writing and publication, reading and publishing news… to issues on art, education or culture.

Perhaps I found kindred spirit in this interview — connecting over the voices of his 7th grade writers compared to my own middle grade writing students — but I loved The Literary Man’s interview with Andrew Slater, a writer and former soldier who has gone back to live in Iraq, teaching English and writing. The title was his answer to the question, What is your writing routine?

Literary agent Rachelle Gardner has endeared herself to writers with the depth of her advice about all levels of the publication process, including best uses of social media. In this article, she offers the most important “no-nos” for a writer to avoid in protecting their professional persona.

While on social media… here is an interesting analysis via MarketingVox. I’d heard analytics before about best days of the week to post to Twitter or Facebook — but this analyzes the level of interaction posts get for each day of the week by industry. Holly Harrison (@hollharris; the “marketing broad” for litmag Paper Darts) cleverly observed that each industry’s target graph looks like a different origami animal. For those of us communicating in publishing, Sunday is a hotter day to hit than Monday.

2 responses to “Friday Links 01.04.13”

Elissa, great links. I especially enjoyed Rachelle Gardner’s piece- did you read the comments? Wow- some fiesty people out there! Thanks for sharing the links I didn’t have time to find. I look forward to this series.

Hi, Julia! I loved that Rachelle Gardner piece, too. Most everything she shares is really, concretely useful — but this was specifically something I’d never heard anyone write about. Hmmm… wondering if I missed the spicey comments – I’ll have to check it out. Thanks for commenting. I’m glad you liked the idea of the series — I was hoping it would be useful to people.